Rose Godwin, strong and clever; fourteen; head of the school. Honey-white Roman face; brown-black hair that smelt like Brazilian nuts. Rose Godwin walking with you in the garden.
“You must behave like other people if you expect them to like you.”
“I don’t expect them. How do I behave?”
“It isn’t exactly behaving. It’s more the way you talk and look at people. As if you saw slap through them. Or else as if you didn’t see them at all. That’s worse. People don’t like it.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. It was cheeky of you to tell Mademoiselle that those French verses didn’t rhyme.”
“But they didn’t.”
“Who cares?”
“I care. I care frightfully.”
“There you go. That’s exactly what I mean,” Rose said. “Who cares if you care? And there’s another thing. You’re worrying Miss Lambert. This school of hers has got a name for sound religious teaching. You may not like sound religious teaching, but she’s got fifteen of us to look after besides you. If you want to be an atheist, go and be it by yourself.”
“I’m not an atheist.”
“Well, whatever silly thing you are. You mustn’t talk about it to the girls. It isn’t fair,” Rose said.
“All right. I won’t.”
“On your honour?”
“On my honour.”
V
A three-cornered note on her dressing-table at bedtime:
. Maison Dieu Lodge.
My dear Mary: Our talk was not satisfactory. Unless you can assure me by tomorrow morning that you believe in the Blessed Trinity and all the other truths of our most holy religion, I fear that, much as we love you, we dare not keep you with us, for your schoolfellows’ sake.
Think it over, my dear child, and let me know. Pray to God tonight to change your heart and mind and give you His Holy Spirit.
The Trinity. A three-cornered note.
My dear Miss Lambert: I am very sorry; but it really isn’t any good, and if it was it couldn’t be done in the time. You wouldn’t like it if I told you lies, would you? That’s why I can’t join in the prayers and say the Creed and bow; in Church or anywhere. Rose made me promise not to talk about it, and I won’t.
If you must send me away tomorrow morning, you must. But I’m glad you love me. I was afraid you didn’t.
Tomorrow the clothes were put back again in their drawers. She wasn’t going. Miss Lambert said something about Rose and Lucy and “kindness to poor Clara.”
VI
Rose Godwin told her that homesickness wore off. It didn’t. It came beating up and up, like madness, out of nothing. The French verbs, grey, slender as little verses on the page, the French verbs swam together and sank under the clear-floating images of homesickness. Mamma’s face, Roddy’s, Dan’s face. Tall trees, the Essex fields, flat as water, falling away behind them. Little feathery trees, flying low on the skyline. Outside the hallucination the soiled light shut you in.
The soiled light; odours from the warm roots of girl’s hair; and Sunday. Sunday; stale odours of churches. You wrote out the sermon you had not listened to and had not heard. Somebody told you the text, and you amused yourself by seeing how near you could get to what you would have heard if you had listened. After tea, hymns; then church again. Your heart laboured with the strain of kneeling, arms lifted up to the high pew ledge. You breathed pew dust. Your brain swayed like a bladder, brittle, swollen with hot gas-fumes. After supper, prayers again. Sunday was over.
On Monday, the tenth day, she ran away to Dover Harbour. She had thought she could get to London with two weeks’ pocket-money and what was left of Uncle Victor’s tip after she had paid for the eau-de-cologne; but the ticket man said it would only take her as far as Canterbury. She had frightened Miss Lambert and made her tremble: all for nothing, except the sight of the Harbour. It was dreadful to see her tremble. Even the Harbour wasn’t worth it.
A miracle would have to happen.
Two weeks passed and three weeks. And on the first evening of the fourth week the miracle happened. Rose Godwin came to her and whispered: “You’re wanted in the dining-room.”
Her mother’s letter lay open on the table. A tear had made a glazed snail’s track down Miss Lambert’s cheek; and Mary thought that one of them was dead—Roddy—Dan—Papa.
“My dear, my dear—don’t cry. You’re going home.”
“Why? Why am I going?”
She could see the dull, kind eyes trying to look clever.
“Because your mother has sent for you. She wants you back again.”
“Mamma? What does she want me for?”
Miss Lambert’s eyes turned aside slantways. She swallowed something in her throat, making a funny noise: qualk-qualk.
“It isn’t you? You aren’t sending me away?”
“No; we’re not sending you. But we think it’s best for you to go. We can’t bear to see your dear, unhappy little face going about the passages.”
“Does it mean that Mamma isn’t happy without me?”
“Well—she would miss her only daughter, wouldn’t she?”
The miracle. The shining, lovely miracle.
“Mary Olivier is going! Mary Olivier is going!”
Actually the girls were sorry. Too sorry. The compassion in Rose Godwin’s face stirred a doubt. Doubt of the miracle.
She carried her books to the white curtained room where Miss Haynes knelt by her trunk, packing her clothes with little gentle, tender hands.
“Miss Haynes” (suddenly), “I’m not expelled, am I?”
“Expelled? My dear child, who’s talking about expulsion?”
As if she said, When miracles are worked for you, accept them.
She lay awake, thinking what she should say to her mother when she got home. She would have to tell her that just at first she very nearly was expelled. Then her mother would believe in her unbelief and not think she was shamming.
And she would have to explain about her unbelief. And
